The mushers were gone, and so were the 640 dogs that pulled them out of town. A few days earlier, the volunteers who gave life to Iditarod had climbed into their single-engine planes and lifted off the ice, carrying their noise along with them. Iditarod City was now quiet, except for the whoosh of […]
IDITAROD, ALASKA — While gliding along a trail that had just felt the imprint of 2,000 dog feet, Bob Gillis skied over to a rock that jutted from the snow. A few miles northwest of the ghost town that gives the world’s most famous sleddog race its name, Gillis and I were in the […]
The forces shaping Alaska never sleep, especially near Yakutat. I visited the fishing town of about 800 people and many dogs a few years back. My assignment was to write about scientists studying Hubbard Glacier, which slammed the door on Russell Fiord in summer 2002, creating the largest glacier-dammed lake in the world for a […]
As I was driving down the highway, I saw a shaggy, gray-black canine cruising along on the snowpack, right next to the road. Could it be one of the hardest animals to spot in Alaska, a wolf? Yes. I pulled over and stopped. The wolf padded along the treeline, getting closer. A few things stood […]